Glycogen storage disease, also called glycogenosis, any of a group of enzymatic deficiencies resulting in altered glycogen metabolism. They are subdivided on the basis of the specific deficiency into 13 types designated O and by successive roman numerals. The clinical manifestations fall into two groups, those associated with abnormalities of liver function and those involving abnormalities of muscle function.

In the liver group, type O is set apart as a deficiency in UDPG-glycogen transferase, resulting in inadequate rates of glycogen synthesis. It appears in infants with a reduction in the number of feedings—low blood sugar values (hypoglycemia) resulting from the rapid depletion of stored glycogen. The other types associated with liver-related symptoms are: type I, a glucose-6-phosphatase deficiency; type III, a deficiency in amylo-1,6-glucosidase and/or oligo-1,4-glucose transferase; type IV, also known as Andersen’s disease, a deficiency in amylo-1,4,6-transglucosylase, with an abnormal structure of glycogen; type VI, a deficiency in liver phosphorylase; type IX, a deficiency in phosphorylasekinase; type XI, a deficiency in phosphoglucomutase; and type XII, a deficiency in cyclic 3′, 5′-AMP-dependent kinase.

The symptoms of disease in the liver group are similar, ranging from symptomatic hypoglycemia and ketoacidosis to largely asymptomatic enlargement of the liver (hepatomegaly). Types I and III are more likely to be symptomatic, and gout is uniquely associated with type I and appears after puberty or in later years of life. The type IV defect almost invariably results in death before puberty in consequence of cirrhosis and portal hypertension. Symptoms of the other types generally disappear before or by puberty. Types I, III, and VI are also known as von Gierke’s disease, Forbes’ disease, and Hers’ disease, respectively.

Of the muscle glycogenoses, type II, the classic Pompe’s disease, is divided into subtypes IIa and IIb. In both, the enzymatic defect is lysosomal α-1,4-glucosidase; but in type IIa an enlargement of the heart occurs, and the disease is fatal in the first year of life. Type IIb disease does not have the cardiac involvement, but there may be severe muscular dystrophy early in life or a progressive myopathy in the teens or later. Other types—type V, also known as McArdle’s disease, a deficiency in muscle phosphorylase; type VII, a deficiency in phosphofructokinase; type VIII, a deficiency in phosphohexoisomerase; and type X, a deficiency in phosphorylasekinase—are diseases that are characterized by weakness, muscle cramps, and sometimes myoglobinuria.

The phosphorylasekinase deficiency characterizing types IX and X is associated with either the liver or muscle type of symptoms. The genetic defects underlying the enzymatic deficiencies of the glycogenoses are recessive and autosomal with the exception of type V, which is sex-linked and occurs only in males.

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...a substance that muscle cells use to convert fatty acids into energy. In these conditions severe muscle weakness progresses slowly. A muscle biopsy shows accumulation of fat in the fibres. In the glycogen storage diseases glycogen accumulates in muscle fibre, because of a deficiency of an enzyme that helps degrade glycogen into lactic acid for the production of energy. Beginning in childhood,...

In 1951 British physician Brian McArdle discovered a disorder of muscle that caused cramplike pains yet was not associated with the normal production of lactic acid from exercise. The defect was later identified as an absence of phosphorylase, the enzyme involved in the first step in the splitting off of the glucose-1-phosphate units from glycogen. Since blood-borne glucose can still be used to...